Becerra won the open California governor’s seat, defeating Steve Hilton to become the first Latino elected governor in the state’s history.
Xavier Becerra, 68, has spent more than three decades in public office. He served 24 years in the U.S. House from Los Angeles, four years as California’s attorney general — where he sued the Trump administration more than 100 times — and four years as President Biden’s health and human services secretary, the first Latino to hold that job.
He won the seat left open when Gov. Gavin Newsom hit his term limit. California has had no Latino governor since Romualdo Pacheco briefly held the office in 1875, and none ever elected to it.
Becerra inherits the country’s biggest state budget and its hardest problems: homelessness, housing costs and a strained health system he once helped run nationally. Watch his first budget — and his relationship with a Democratic legislature that does not always agree with its own governor.
Fast facts
- Age: 68
- Party: Democratic
- Office: Governor of California
- State: California
- Previous job: U.S. secretary of health and human services (2021–2025)
- Called by AP: 11:00 p.m. ET, Nov. 3
Part of the Zark News Election 2026 winners profile series. Winners are listed as called by the Associated Press.
